Landrieu hot over NRSC comments

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) is taking aim at National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn for “below-the-belt” comments made by an aide in a Louisiana newspaper.

In a Dec. 17 piece in The News Star of Monroe, La., the NRSC is quoted as saying Landrieu “allowed herself to be ‘bribed’ into supporting the health care bill.”

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NRSC spokeswoman Amber Wilkerson Marchand added in the story that the bill would increase taxes for Landrieu's constituents.

Those comments are “patently false” and “so disrespectful,” Landrieu told POLITICO in an interview Thursday evening.

“It doesn’t really matter to me what Rush Limbaugh says. Or, you know, any of the other entertainers out there,” Landrieu said. “It does matter to me what colleagues say. And John Cornyn is the head of that committee.”

The NRSC’s comments appear to be referring to $100 million in Medicaid money that would be directed toward her state.

Landrieu said her staff approached Cornyn (R-Texas) on Thursday and that he “refused” to apologize or back off the comments. She said she would talk to Cornyn within the next 24 hours to express her feelings.

“I thought he was a bigger man than that, but evidently I was wrong,” Landrieu said. A 12-year veteran of the Senate, Landrieu has been at the center of the health care battle. She initially opposed the bill because of cost concerns and the inclusion of a public option, but she now supports the legislation.

She isn’t up for reelection until 2014. “Colleagues should have a certain respect for each other, and he has to take responsibility as the chair,” Landrieu said of Cornyn. “If I were a chair of our Senate committee and someone on the staff said that about one of our colleagues, I most certainly would apologize and say let’s back off.”

Brian Walsh, a spokesman for the NRSC, said Landrieu’s reaction is “surprising” because she touted a deal with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

“It makes us wonder if this is less about anything the NRSC said, and more about the fact that her poll numbers have dropped over 15 points in Louisiana since she came on board Harry’s health care train,” Walsh said in an e-mailed statement.